Oracle Releases its own Xen Variant

At Oracle’s own Open World fair in San Francisco, Oracle recently presented a virtualization software titled Oracle VM, based on the free Xen virtualization solution.

Besides the Open Source software with the Xen hypervisor, Oracle VM includes a browser-based management console, and a GUI front-end that supports virtual server management. The enterprise claims that its virtualization solution is easier to install: users will be able to install both the virtualization software and the enterprise application in a single session, and updates will be just as simple. Supported guest systems include Linux and Windows operating system, including Oracle’s own Red Hat variant, Oracle Enterprise Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), Windows 2003 and XP.

In its product announcement Oracle claims that its virtualization software is up to three times faster than competitive products. Similar figures were bandied just a few days ago, when Linux distributor Red Hat released the updated version of its Red Hat Enterprise Linux including Xen virtualization. Oracle isn’t just competing with Red Hat on the virtualization front; Oracle’s own Oracle Unbreakable Linux version can be seen as a direct attack on Red Hat, and a counter to "Unfakeable Linux".

The Oracle virtualization solution is being promoted as a part of a product family including Oracle’s own middleware and additional enterprise applications. This strategy is in line with the second major topic at the fair, application integration. Oracle refers to this as its Application Integration Architecture Foundation Pack.

Free downloads of Oracle VM will be available from the vendor’s website as of November 14; Oracle will be looking to generate revenues through support. The price for enterprise support for a system with up to two CPUs is US$ 499 per annum, with the price rising to US$ 999 for an unlimited number of CPUs.